March 19, 2009

Discovering Each Child's Strengths

I happened to be hanging out in the green room just before the third session at Conspire when the room became filled with kids who were going to be involved in drama midway through the session. It was so awesome because I got to hear comments from 4th and 5th graders like, “I get front row seats to hear Sarah.” “Who’s Sarah?” “Hello, she’s a famous singer.” Needless to say, the concert was amazing and I’m convinced Sara could sing the phonebook and it would still sound magical.

The session took a turn to Jennifer Fox and a look at child strengths. The question was asked, “Do you see potential?” She started identifying her strengths one of which is self-love (not fashion or humor), which Jennifer sees as a part of a Scriptural command to love one another. Loving one another must begin with self-love. It’s crucial for a child to discover self-love. So at its heart, the strengths movement is a commandment.

Strengths are a paradox of perspective. Often strengths are overlooked as weaknesses. Fox outlined three different types of strengths:Activity Strengths: Things you do that give you energy. Relationship Strengths: Things you do for other people Learning Strengths: Optimal ways you learn

Jennifer evaluated the way education looks at learners. Often, educational institutions force one learning style on kids. If a child cannot learn the dominant way (passive listening and getting tested on comprehension) they are labeled.

So, do you see potential?What kind of educational paradigm defines your church and ministry? Are kids being marginalized because they do not learn the same way as the rest of the group?What would adopting a strengths philosophy look like in your context?

Comments

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Miss Whittington made a good point. The talk centered a lot around school and I easily switched into teacher mode since that was my main career for so long. I forgot all about connecting the information to Church Ministry for children.

I understand where the teacher from Delaware is coming from but I think she missed out on the fact that the sunday school and kids church arena's do not necessarily have "learned, accredited teachers" as their leaders. To understand how some of the mistakes in past years have happened in schools it can help us move forward in a venue where teaching is not an accredited position and that the most important thing we say and do is model and speak of Jesus' Love, to do that in a context that recognizes our strengths and talents is a good spring board.

Jennifer had some interesting ideas about building strengths. . .but I totally missed the connect to how that fits with our ministry's children's programming. Our students are not junior highers or high schoolers. . .so we do not have small groups that extend past our Sunday programs. This was a good talk, but belonged at a parent's conference. . .not a children's ministry conference!

I feel like I live in a parallel universe than Ms. Fox. I have taught for many years at the elementary level in private and public school. What Ms. Fox described as the exception, I have found to be the general rule. Aspiring teachers are taught there are anywhere from 3-7 learning styles and how to accommodate as many as possible during a lesson. Teachers making lesson plans in Delaware have to show they are engaging the students at several levels, a fancy way of saying making learning fun. Curriculum are now designed to be more hands on and expressive than the days of simply reading from the text and answering questions. For instance in Delaware we do not use science books anymore and have replaced them with the Smithsonian science kits. These kits allow students to do, observe, draw, write expressively, and much more. Finally, Ms. Fox said people blame the child and not the teacher. Sadly in Delaware parents attack and question teachers abilities and qualifications often. Many students get switched from teacher to teacher (and even school to school) several times in a school year because the parents do not accept that there are issues that may need to be addressed with their child until many educational professionals have faced the same problems with their child. I agree we all have different gifts from God and are uniquely formed and fashioned by God's hands for a special purpose. I just think the few bad apples were made to represent the bunch last night.